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Doing Discourse Analysis, Gordon R. Waitt

Gordon Waitt

My hope in writing this chapter is to generate enthusiasm for geographical research employing discourse analysis. My intention is to provide some advice on doing discourse analysis to facilitale the design of research. I first outline why some geographers have been inspired by this approach. I suggest how Foucauldian discourse analysis is a break from other critical methods applied to textual analysis, including content analysis, semiology, and iconography. The theoretical underpinnings of the method provided by Michel Foucault, a French poststructuralist philosopher, is a key source of difference. I therefore condense Michel Foucault's contribution to discourse analysis by sketching out …